


Charade

by Anonymous



Category: Alles was zählt
Genre: Death, Gen, M/M, Major Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2019-03-04 12:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13364844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Roman would tell them: “It is what it is. I will go through Marijke Amado’s magic door and everything will be fine. All day long, I’ll warble Marianne Rosenberg songs. Don’t worry. They already have many like me up there.”Of course, it doesn’t matter shit who exactly they might have. The thing is: Whodon’tthey have already?





	Charade

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2012. Translated in 2018.

“Cancer,” Oma Hertha would repeat.  
  
Roman can just imagine her saying that, twisting her wrinkly, pink-tinted lips in disapproval. That is, until she’d smack several soft kisses on both of his cheeks mere seconds later. A little gruff, his grandmother’s tenderness, but always loving. Just like when she’d used to bury her tiny hands in his hair, sometimes painfully so, and suddenly let out a cackling laugh when she noticed her fingers were sticky with styling gel. He often deliberately used way too much product before his family came to visit, just because he knew it would please her and the grim glances of his father in the rearview mirror on their way back home amused him.  
  
He’d probably have to wash his face after that confession, Roman thinks. His grandmother’s lipstick never suited her. Or him. But since she’d outlive him anyway, who cares about make-up tips now? And it’s not like he’s ever gotten much out of his own sense of style and well-fitting Levi’s jeans. Just a few hot guys to fuck and a post-coital robbery here and there.  
  
  
  
“Not Aids?” his father would ask. Maybe. “That’s what I’d expected.”  
  
But that’s only his terribly exaggerated nightmare and Roman knows it. He watches them again, the soap operas with all those pretty and sickeningly well-meaning people. Drama and high emotions everywhere. It eats away at your brain. Comes right into your life when you flaunt the “Baywatch” stickers on your backpack a little too freely.  
  
It used to be that. Today, it’s a “General Hospital” rerun. Never trust a doctor with bad hair. Or a guy, who’s recently returned from Panama and turns out to be not only some long lost twin brother but also a ridiculously talented cardiac surgeon.  
  
“You cannot really mean that,” Deniz says when he returns from his shift at the “Schranke”. His face betrays his skepticism when he glances at the TV screen.  
  
“Better ideas?” Roman asks and holds the remote a little more firmly now.  
  
Maybe he needs the drama because he avoids it everywhere else in his life. Who knows. Who can know.  
  
Or because it’s simpler when suddenly a heart stops on-screen and our beautiful, Panaman twin doctor’s blow-dry still looks perfect, even after an agonizing, ten-hour surgery marathon.  
  
Familiarization to the idea of death. So that Roman’s used to it when his own glorious attempt at it arrives. That said, the mere thought of it is surreal as ever to him.  
  
Still feels more likely to enter the next World Figure Skating Championship.

 _I’d love to see you age_ _,_ Roman thinks to himself, one hour later when, in a dramatic twist of fate, the Panaman doctor is revealed to be an impostor. He watches Deniz out of the corner of his eye, sitting next to him and holding back his groans of frustration with a remarkable effort. Roman lovingly traces the shell of Deniz’s ear with his fingertip. And that’s when he catches himself: _I didn’t just think that!_  
  
Who’d want Deniz, his beautiful Deniz, to get old? That’s way too much sentimentality right there. Maybe Roman should be happy he’s croaking now, considering that he’s still full of sap. Wrong parts rigid, right parts not limp. Yet. What a great epitaph that’d be. Better than “always third place”.  
  
  
  
Roman has even thought about calling his mother.  
  
He’s good at lying to her now. But that almost seems like a wasted effort at charade for a mediocre conversation about her potted plants or how she already misses Thomas Gottschalk on “Wetten Dass...” They used to talk about the articles about him in those gossip rags for seniors which even his father reads sporadically. “Schöne Woche” or something. Twisted facts, sensationalism on every page, but hey, it’s another win for Mom’s photo album. And, turns out, also for their small talk, which, back then, too often consisted of her pedicure adventures with hammer-toe neighbor Doris.  
  
(He secretly wonders: Would she cut out his obituary? Do they even have a Ruhr Report subscription?)  
  
Maybe she’d say: “Why didn’t you tell us earlier? What’s going to happen with Florian?”  
  
And Roman would maybe reply: “Don’t you want to meet the man I wanted to... _have_ shared my life with?”  
  
  
  
He enjoys every single second of Katja’s free skate, and quietly watches her embrace Ben afterwards, pride evident in that beaming smile on her face.  
  
Roman wouldn’t tell her. Ever. Who wants to be made best man out of pity?  
  
He feels proud of her, of course. But also a little jealous. Of the fact that those two are going to marry. And breed. And everything after that. Make a home. Yadda yadda. All that stuff straight people do with each other.  
  
He gladly keeps his genes all to himself, thank you very much. And that’s not even the problem. Just, shit, there’s too much out there he doesn’t want to give up. Let go. Lose.  
  
  
  
Annette would say: “You... You cannot do that!”  
  
And Ingo would add: “You can _not_! You’re our Hase!”  
  
They would probably not sit fully-clothed in the bathtub, like Roman pictures them in this moment, but that makes it easier to ignore the tears on Nettchen’s round cheeks. In the blink of an eye, both are wet from head to toe. Makes Ingo's glittering eyes less noticeable. Ingo also gets a Hömberger right in front of his face, just so that he won’t even entertain the idea of complaining.  
  
Roman would tell them: “It is what it is. I will go through Marijke Amado’s magic door and everything will be fine. All day long, I’ll warble Marianne Rosenberg songs. Don’t worry. They already have many like me up there.”  
  
Of course, it doesn’t matter shit who exactly they might have. The thing is: Who _don’t_ they have already?  
  
  
  
Flo would complain: “Hey, I haven’t gone professional yet!”  
  
And Roman would just shrug his shoulders. “You should try to benefit from your famous brother as long as you’re still able to, sweetie.”  
  
“That’s ‘princess’ to you!” Ingo would correct him, still in the bathtub with his now empty bottle of Hömberger. “Gotta pay attention to the details, even in your silly daydreams, Hase.”  
  
“Princess,” Roman would say and Florian would have to smile.  
  
  
  
His Deniz whispers every night before they fall asleep, “I’m here for you.” And Deniz means it.  
  
And Roman thinks, “Oh God, how corny,” but he believes him.  
  
And then there are times in which he doesn’t want to believe anything, but that’s another story. No room for hope, no training, no closeness, no nothing. Times in which he wants to die or something that comes terribly close to it. But he doesn’t die. Not yet. Not then.  
  
“Thank you,” he tells Deniz at the end when he’s already been lying on the ice for a little too long and their kiss is the last warm thing he remembers. Their fingers are intertwined but he can already feel his grip slacken.  
  
Deniz whispers for the last time, “I’m here for you,” and he is like he’s always been, and then Roman walks through the magic door alone.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Thomas Gottschalk:** Moderator of the highly successful German television show "Wetten Dass..." ("You bet!") for almost 18 years. Left the show in 2011 after someone was badly injured during a bet.
> 
>  **Schöne Woche:** Lit. "Nice Week".
> 
>  **Marijke Amado's magic door:** Reference to a German show called "Mini Playback Show" in which kids lipsynched to the songs of their favorite musical acts. Before they got on stage, the kids usually went through a "magic door" just to come out in full make-up and costume a few seconds later. [That's what it looked like.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jC5_yJAjcQ)


End file.
